Aviation history is being restored to the heart of a business and residential park built on a former RAF fighter station.

Liberty Property Trust UK, the developer and management company for Kings Hill, West Malling, wants to tell the story of the airfield that became operational in the First World War and played a role in the Battle of Britain in 1940. It later hosted the Warbirds air show and a number of aviation businesses.

Liberty has sought a commercially viable way of doing it.

As part of a £5 million project to complete the central area, which includes Liberty Square, the community hub, it is considering a visitor centre in the original control tower, now a listed building.

It would be combined with commercial activity such as retail and a coffee shop.

Andrew Blevins, managing director, is concerned that the central area is still not completed. He said: "The job's only half done and if we were back at school, I think I'd get a 'could do better'.

"It's not quite right at the moment and we've got an opportunity to make it better."

Liberty is working with a consultant on a revised masterplan for the area. "If all goes according to plan, we will bring the control tower back into economic and cultural use. It needs to have an economic use and speak to its history."

The go-ahead would depend on support from all the Kings Hill stakeholders.

He said a visitor centre would recall the history of the airfield. "If we get that balance between some sort of retail/commercial use and the cultural historical use, I think that would do it justice. I think the public will be supportive of that."

Manchester-based HOW Planning is advising Liberty on the proposal, developing a masterplan for the mixed development of residential, commercial, retail, sports, leisure and education uses. It will include detailed plans for the aircraft control tower.

Since it took charge of the Kent County Council-owned site in the early 1990s, Liberty has placed culture alongside commerce.

It established the Rouse Kent Public Art Award, so-called after the developer's original name which derived from Bill Rouse, the late founder of the parent company in Philadelphia and mayor of that city.

Now known as Liberty, the business has also created a new cricket pitch that will open for play this summer and built a pavilion.

"It was not a planning obligation but we think it's the right thing to do," said Mr Blevins.